Insensitive comments

Sigh... Sometimes I think I get too worked up over things. But maybe it's worth it if it makes for good blog post fodder/motivation?

At lunchtime today, a coworker who has two kids (the older is BR's age) was talking about getting up to tend to the younger one in the middle of the night. Another coworker was questioning her about it, suggesting it may be time to night wean and sleep train the youngster. I chimed in to say that BR was still waking up most nights at 2 and a half... This was meant as a helpful comment, letting my friend know that other kids also woke up in the middle of the night at her son's age, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

Turns out I should have kept my mouth shut. I was told I didn't know what I was talking about since I only had one kid, and that just cannot compare to having two of them. Never mind that I wasn't trying to compare, or even say anything like "I know how you feel", since I am well aware that I don't. I sure didn't appreciate having it shoved in my face, though, and basically being told that I am not part of the group, because I only have one child.

Of course, having two children is different than having one (and in most cases, harder, especially in the early years). But at the same time, I would hope that as adults we would not be induging in silly games of "I have it so much harder than you", especially when it comes to such a minefield as human reproduction. Arguably, people have somewhat of an idea of what's coming when they decide to have a second child. On the other hand, some of us may not appreciate to be reminded that we "only" have one child (and that's all we'll ever have - queue the tiny violins).

Anyway, I guess my lesson here is to learn to keep my mouth shut. Won't be easy!

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest I feel better now :)

A lot of work ahead, and some fun

It's been a hard week in our household. BR is going through another phase of asserting her independence, wanting to control absolutely everything and fighting us tooth and nail if things don't go her way. I had kind of hoped the "terrible two's" were behind us, and all of a sudden we get tantrums like we haven't seen before.

Today I realized something: at least part of the problem in the last few weeks has been on my part. In the past, when BR had a meltdown or a tantrum, I remembered that she was just a kid (baby, really), trying to sort out her emotions, and not able to handle them. I think we've been fairly successful in navigating those waters.

This time things are different. BR seems defiant, and trying to push boundaries in ways she's never done before. While in the past she might have fought us on one thing or another, because she actually cared about that specific thing, we could often negotiate with her and explain why things had to be done a certain way. Now, once she gets into the fighting spirit, she will fight over anything and everything, and there's just no negotiating at all. She does not want to hear it.

Unfortunately, this is where I discovered how stubborn I really am. I can't believe I never really wondered about my stubbornness before, but at least now I know. I get it into my head that my job is to enforce some boundaries, and while I try to do my best to pick my battles, once the line in the sand is drawn, I stick to it. Not that it feels good, mind you. I get annoyed and frustrated, but I won't give in, and we and up in a battle of wills.

Anyway, half the battle is figuring out the problem, and today I realized how much baggage I am bringing into the whole exchange and how much resentment it stirs up inside me. I'm realizing that I don't enjoy being the rule enforcer, but I don't know how to do anything other than deal with rules. The saving grace thus far has been the fact that BR also loves rules (taking after her Mum I guess), and so as long as we explain things well at her level, we were usually ok.

Anyway, all that as a long way of explaining that I have a fair bit of work to do to apply this new found knowledge/understanding, and work at diffusing situations by not letting these altercations get the best of me and not contribute to the escalation. Wish me luck!

Luckily there are lots of fun things planned for the weekend too, that we can look forward to (playdates and things!), so I'm hoping it will all be good in the end :)

Gack!

...to borrow BR's favourite expression of frustration :)

Of course as soon as I decide to participate in NaPoBloMo, our internet access goes all kablooey as soon as rain started on Sunday. Two days of slow as molasses internet meant that I only updated BR's blog.

On the plus side, all the forced introspection to find out some things to let go of really did seem to work out pretty well. I am feeling a lot less overwhelmed today than I was on Friday, which has gotta be a good thing :)

Things I am ready to let go of: parental guilt at not always being the 100% perfect parent (easier said than done, but I'm working on it), as well as stressing out over my current weight/appearance. I think I am about 10lbs heavier than this time last year and have been trying to find non-intrusive ways to deal with that (as to not overburden myself), but just the fact that I'm regularly thinking about it is tiring enough. So out it goes.

So that's that :) Bedtime now, but more musings to come later.

Filler

Ok, so I'm not going to hit the one post a day thing, not even close, and things are a little busy/chaotic right now, but I figured I had a minute to post this photo from a few weeks ago. It's not the supermoon, but it's close (a few days earlier):

So far so good

Well, instead of decluttering, today we decided to fill up our day by heading to a sugar bush. It was a nice family activity, outside in the beautiful sun, walking through the woods and enjoying the sights. We got there early enough that there weren't too many crowds, which was pretty nice.

We got back home for a quick snack and went out for some errands. On our way back, BR fell asleep in the car just as we were getting home, so I sat with her in the car (while DH was taking his own nap inside the house), and managed to finish reading one of my library books - Parking Lot Rules.

The rest of the day went by in a blur, but at least having finished the book I now have one less thing on my plate :) It was worthwhile to finish the book, while a lot of the content was common sense, it had some helpful reminders. I think the whole reason I checked it out of the library was because I needed some of these reminders, so it all works out well!

Still not much progress on yesterday's goal for the weekend, but I do have a whole other day to work on it - I am optimistic!

NaPoBloMo

I'm going to try something new this month. Clearly the last attempt at blogging more often did not work all that very well... So this month I will be aiming for short posts, but daily (eek!).

Today's prompt is "What are you ready to let go of?". And I am not sure of the answer. It is clear to me that I am juggling too many things at once (hence the radio silence on the blog). Work is very demanding at this point, and I am on a path to join the ranks of management - I am hoping that it would mean less work hours, or specifically, less overtime hours... But in the meantime it means putting even more responsibilities on my plate as I learn to navigate the chasm (between grunt and management)

At home, I am working on completing a personal interest course, which I am hoping to finish by this summer.

On the other hand, there's all the home obligations - BR's blog (not dropping that), food prep, laundry (also not negotiable), preparing for the trip to Poland at the end of the month, and possibly a few smaller trips in the summer.

I also have a few library books on the go. Now that I'm typing it all out, it does sound like I've crammed a few too many things into my schedule - and that is even ignoring the miscellaneous dentist and doctor visits that have a tendency to crop up...

Which actually leads me to one answer - maybe it's time for me to let go of the need to "improve" myself on all fronts (exercise, reading, self-improvement, you name it). So my goal for this weekend is to choose a single goal to focus on for the next three months. Hopefully I can come up with a targeted focus that will leave me feeling less harried and confused...

Here's hoping :)

Navel gazing with a needle in my arm

Funny thing happened today at work. First of all, because of the big snow storm, barely anyone showed up at work. Secondly, a blood donor clinic had been scheduled in our cafeteria, and they weren't very busy. I had tried giving blood in the past, and always ended up feeling faint, and I was told to try again after having a child.

So today it felt like the perfect situation to try again. I went down, filled out the paperwork, spent a fair amount of time waiting, talking to the nurses etc. I actually had to convince them to let me try again, since the last time I attempted to give blood (13 years ago) they put a big note on my file about fainting. Anyway, in the end they gave me another chance.

I was halfway through the big bag of blood, in a record breaking 2 minutes (it used to take me quite a while to fill the bag), when the familiar light-headed feeling started creeping in. I let the nurse know, they immediately sprung into action, flipping my seat head down, cold compresses, a fan, the whole shebang. And thus, I have been banned from giving blood ever again...

On the one hand I am glad I tried again, now I know I am just not made to give blood. On the other hand I feel bad for causing all this trouble, really uncomfortable with all the hoopla made about me (I didn't even faint!), and a little bit embarrassed about the whole episode. Quite a few coworkers must have seen me there surrounded by nurses and compresses etc. Luckily I've lived down my share of embarrassing moments at work, so I am not overly concerned :)

Technical difficulties

Le sigh! I truly had good intentions for more posting (and still do in fact). Was interrupted by BR getting sick (two days of fever and misery followed by a week of antibiotics), but more importantly by technical adjustments. DH spent the weekend re-imaging my laptop, and then did it again on his day off yesterday. My poor laptop needed it in a bad way - it had become so sluggish it was bordering on unuseable. It's quite unbelievable how much faster and quieter it is working now! So I have no more technical excuses for the radio silence. My daily updates to BR's blog should take a fraction of the time they used to, leaving me more time for other posting/reading and miscellaneous activities.

But now it's bedtime, so any profound thoughts I had to share will have until later. Goodnight!

Getting chattier

I've been neglecting this blog quite a bit over the last few years (mostly due to all the blogging I do on BR's blog). But I miss it, and I get a little disappointed in how many fully composed (in my head) posts I have not managed to type up over the last while. So I am going to try something new - I am challenging myself to post something at least once a week.

So this post is my way of making sure I commit to this publicly, so that I hopefully don't forget about it ;)

Hoping to be talking to you a lot more very soon :)